E-text prepared by Al Haines
GARTHOWEN
A Story of a Welsh Homestead.
by
ALLEN RAINE.
Author of "Torn Sails," "A Welsh Singer,"
"By Berwen Banks," Etc.
Sixty-Fifth Thousand
London
Hutchinson & Co.
Paternoster Row
CONTENTS
CHAP.
I. A Turn of the Road
II. "Garthowen"
III. Morva of the Moor
IV. The Old Bible
V. The Sea Maiden
VI. Gethin's Presents
VII. The Broom Girl
VIII. Garthowen Slopes
IX. The North Star
X. The Cynos
XI. Unrest
XII. Sara's Vision
XIII. The Bird Flutters
XIV. Dr. Owen
XV. Gwenda's Prospects
XVI. Isderi
XVII. Gwenda at Garthowen
XVIII. Sara
XIX. The "Sciet"
XX. Love's Pilgrimage
XXI. The Mate of the "Gwenllian"
XXII. Gethin's Story
XXIII. Turned Out!
XXIV. A Dance on the Cliffs
GARTHOWEN
CHAPTER I
A TURN OF THE ROAD
It was a typical July day in a large seaport town of South Wales.
There had been refreshing showers in the morning, giving place to a
murky haze through which the late afternoon sun shone red and round.
The small kitchen of No. 2 Bryn Street was insufferably hot, in spite
of the wide-open door and window. A good fire burnt in the grate,
however, for it was near tea-time, and Mrs. Parry knew that some of her
lodgers would soon be coming in for their tea. One had already
arrived, and, sitting on the settle in the chimney corner, was holding
an animated conversation with his landlady, who stood before him, one
hand akimbo on her side, the other brandishing a toasting fork. Her
beady black eyes, her brick-red cheeks and hanks of coarse hair, were
not beautiful to look upon, though to-day they were at their best, for
the harsh voice was softened, and there was a humid gentleness in the
eyes not habitual to them. Her companion was a young man about
twenty-three years of age, dark, almost swarthy of hue, tanned by the
suns and storms of foreign seas and many lands, As he sat there in the
shade of the settle one caught a glance of black eyes and a gleam of
white teeth, but the easy, lounging attitude did not show to advantage
the splendid build of Gethin Owens. One of his large brown fists,
resting on the rough deal table, was covered with tattooed
hieroglyphics, an anchor, a mermaid, and a heart, of course! Anyone
conversant with the Welsh language would have divined at once, by the
long-drawn intonation of the first words in every remark, that the
subject of conversation was one of sad or tender interest.
"Well, indeed," said Mrs. Parry, "the-r-e's missing you I'll be,
Gethin! We are coming from the same place, you see, and you are
knowing all about me, and I about you, and that I supp-o-s-e is making
me feel more like a mother to you than to the other lodgers."
"Well, you _have_ been like a mother to me, mending my clothes and
watching me so sharp with the drink. Dei anwl! I don't think I ever
took a glass with a friend without you finding me out, and calling me
names. 'Drunken blackguard!' you called me one night, when as sure as
I'm here I had only had a bottle of gingerpop in Jim Jones's shop," and
he laughed boisterously.
"Well, well," said Mrs. Parry, "if I wronged you then, be bound you
deserved the blame some other time, and 'twas for your own good I was
telling you, my boy. Indeed, I wish I was going home with you to the
old neighbourhood. The-r-e's glad they'll be to see you at Garthowen."
"Well, I don't know how my father will receive me," said her companion
thoughtfully. "Ann and Will I am not afraid of, but the old man--he
was very angry with me."
"What _did_ you do long ago to make him so angry, Gethin? I have heard
Tom Powell and Jim Bowen blaming him very much for being so hard to his
eldest son; they said he was always more fond of Will than you, and was
often beating you."
"Halt!" said Gethin, bringing his fist down so heavily on the table
that the tea-things jingled, "not a word against the old man--the best
father that ever walked, and I was the worst boy on Garthowen slopes,
driving the chickens into the water, shooing the geese over the hedges,
riding the horses full pelt down the stony roads, setting fire to the
gorse bushes, mitching from school, and making the boys laugh in
chapel; no wonder the old man turned me away."
"But all boys are naughty boys," said Mrs. Parry, "and that wasn't
enough reason for sending you from home, and shutting the door against
you."
"No," said Gethin, "but I did more than that; I could not do a worse
thing than I did to displease the old man. I was fond of scribbling my
name everywhere. 'Gethin Owens' was on all the gateposts, and on the
saddles and bridles, and once I painted 'G. O.' with green paint on the
white mare's haunch. There was a squall when that was found out, but
it was nothing to the storm that burst upon me when I wrote something
in my mother's big Bible. As true as I am here, I don't remember what
I wrote, but I know it was something about the devil, and I signed it
'Gethin Owens,' and a big 'Amen' after it. Poor old man, he was
shocking angry, and he wouldn't listen to no excuse; so after a good
thrashing I went away, Ann ran after me with my little bundle, and the
tears streaming down her face, but I didn't cry--only when I came upon
little Morva Lloyd sitting on the hillside. She put her arms round my
neck and tried to keep me back, but I dragged myself away, and my tears
were falling like rain then, and all the way down to Abersethin as long
as I could hear Morva crying and calling out 'Gethin! Gethin!'"
"There's glad she'll be to see you."
"Well, I dunno. She was used to be very fond of me; she couldn't bear
Will because he was teazing her, but I was like a slave to her. 'I
want some shells to play,' sez she sometimes, and there I was off to
the shore, hunting about for shells for her. 'Take me a ride,' sez
she, and up on my shoulder I would hoist her, as happy as a king, with
her two little feet in my hands, and her little fat hands ketching
tight in my hair, and there's galloping over the slopes we were, me
snorting and prancing, and she laughing all the time like the swallows
when they are flying."
They were interrupted by a clatter of heavy shoes and a chorus of
boisterous voices, as three sailors came in loudly calling for their
tea.
"Hello, Gethin! not gone? Hast changed thy mind?"
"Not a bit of it," said Gethin, pointing to his bag of clothes. "I
have been a long time making up my mind, but it's Garthowen and the
cows and the cawl for me this time and no mistake."
"And Morva," said Jim Bowen, with a smile, in which lurked a suspicion
of a sneer. "Thee may say what thee likes about the old man, and the
cows, and the cawl, but I know thee, Gethin Owens! Ever since I told
thee what a fine lass Morva Lloyd has grown thee'st been hankering
after Garthowen slopes."
There was a general laugh, in which Gethin joined good-humouredly,
standing and stretching himself with a yawn. The evening sun fell full
upon him, showing a form of sinewy strength, and a handsome manly face.
His dark skin and the small gold rings in his ears, so much affected by
Welsh sailors, gave him a foreign look, which rather added to the
attractiveness of his personal appearance.
When the tea had been partaken of, with a running accompaniment of
broad jokes and loud laughter, the three sailors went out, leaving
Gethin still sitting on the settle. This was Mrs. Parry's hour of
peace--when her consumptive son came home from his loitering in the
sunshine to join her at her own quiet "cup of tea," while her rough
husband was still engaged amongst the shipping in the docks.
"Well, what'll I say to Nani Graig?" said Gethin.
"Oh, poor mother, my love, and tell her if it wasn't for my boy Tom I'd
soon be home with her again, for I'll never live with John Parry when
my boy is gone."
"He's not going for many a long year," said Gethin, slapping the boy on
the back, his more sensitive nature shrinking from such plain speaking.
But Tom was used to it, and smiled, shuffling uneasily under the slap.
"What you got bulging out in your bag like that?" he asked.
"Oh, presents for them at Garthowen; will I show them to you?" said the
sailor awkwardly, as he untied the mouth of the canvas bag. "Here's a
tie for my father, and a hymn-book for Ann, and here's a knife for
Will, and a pocket-book for Gwilym Morris, the preacher who is lodging
with them. And here," he said, opening a gaily-painted box, "is
something for little Morva," and he gently laid on the table a necklace
of iridescent shells which fell in three graduated rows.
"Oh! there's pretty!" said Mrs. Parry, and while she held the shining
shells in the red of the sun, again the doorway was darkened by the
entrance of two noisy, gaudily-dressed girls, who came flouncing up to
the table.
"Hello! Bella Lewis and Polly Jones, is it you? Where you come from
so early?" said Mrs. Parry.
"Come to see me, of course!" suggested the sailor.
"Come to see you and stop you going," said one of the girls. "Gethin
Owens, you _are_ more of a skulk than I took you for, though you are
rather shirky in your ways, if this is true what I hear about you."
"What?" said Gethin, replacing the necklace in the box.
"That you are going home for good, going to turn farmer and say
good-bye to the shipping and the docks." And as she spoke she laid her
hand on the box which Gethin was closing, and drew out its contents.
There was a greedy glitter in her bold eyes as she asked, "Who's that
for?" and she clasped it round her own neck, while Gethin's dark face
flushed.
"Couldn't look better than there," he answered gallantly, "so you keep
it, to remember me," and tying up his canvas bag he bade them all a
hurried good-bye.
Mrs. Parry followed him to the doorway with regretful farewells, for
she was losing a friend who had not only paid her well, but had been
kind to her delicate boy, and whose strong fist had often decided in
her favour a fight with her brutal husband.
"There you now," she said, in a confidential whisper and with a nudge
on Gethin's canvas bag, "there you are now; fool that you are! giving
such a thing as that to Bella Lewis! What did you pay for it, Gethin?
Shall I have it if I can get it from her? Why did you give it to her?
you said 'twas for little Morva--"
"Yes, it was," he said; "but d'ye think, woman, I would give it to
Morva after being on Bella Lewis's neck? No! that's why I am running
away in such a hurry, to buy her another, d'ye see, and Dei anwl, I
must make haste or else I'll be late on board. Good-bye, good-bye."
Mrs. Parry looked after him almost tenderly, but called out once more:
"Shall I have it if I can get it?"
"Yes, yes," shouted Gethin in return, and as he made his way through
the grimy, unsavoury street, he chuckled as he pictured the impending
scrimmage.